Jonathan Toews

[RememberTheRoar]

So what you are saying is...the whole "he plays the toughest minutes and the hard match ups" is bs?

I remember people would try and knock Kane down because os starts lol

I wasn’t saying anything was bs, I just posted the data I found interesting.

Still, don’t know how you came to that conclusion you did.

 

[JaegerDice]

I was going through some stats earlier trying to figure out what was different when Toews was successful.

Three seasons in particular caught my eye — 2010-2011, 2011-2012, and 2013-2014. Those are three seasons where Toews was near a point per game player, and started in the offensive zone more than 60% of the time.

In the 10-11 season, he played with Kane and whatever big body on the LW. Toews scored 32 goals and 76 points that year. He took 412 offensive zone draws, and 260 in the defensive zone — a 61.63 offensive zone start percentage.

In 11-12, nearly 65% of his draws came in the offensive zone, and he was nearly a point per game player.

In 13-14, nearly 64% of his draws came in the offensive zone, and he put up 68 points.

That season was the last time Toews would have an offensive zone start percentage above 60%, and was the last time he’d see fewer than 300 defensive zone starts. His offensive production also trended downward over the next four seasons.

While he still put up good numbers in the 14-15 season despite a ~56% offensive zone start, and taking more than 300 defensive zone draws for the first time in his career, he did it with future HOFer Marian Hossa. This was the last season Toews took more than 400 offensive zone draws.

This past season, Toews inched close t0 the 400 offensive zone draw mark, but also took the most defensive zone starts of his career — and that added up to a ~55% offensive zone start mark, and his worst offensive production to date.

TL;DR

With the exceptions of an anomaly post-lockout season and Hossa’s last monster season — Toews has played his best hockey getting 400 or more offensive zone starts, getting less than 300 defensive zone starts, and seeing ZS% of 60% or higher. He hasn’t been put in that situation since the 2013-2014 season, the same year his offensive output seemingly peaked.​

As far as your numbers, context would be good relative to the team around him.

For example, in 2014, literally the only line under 50% OZS was the 4th line. Kruger, Nordstrom, Smith and Bollig had under 20%.

FOURTEEN forwards had OZ Start percentages over 60% according to naturalstattrick, with Kane peaking among regulars at 69.61%. That is insane. Toews had only the 7th highest OZ S% on the team among regular forwards. For the 7th highest OZS% forward on the team to be over 60 is crazy.

The simple fact is that team was in the Ozone ALL THE TIME. Toews may have had under 300 Dzone starts, he still had the 5th most among forwards (and 2nd for centers) after the 4th line and Sharp (who played more games than both Hossa and Toews that season). Basically, you had the 4th line taking the most Dzone starts, and then the Toews line up next for Dzone workload. Just like every other season since 2013.

So yeah, if you have that team, then Toews is going to get a lot of ozone starts to go with his lots of neutral zone starts, and his lots of dzone starts.

Plus (for the benefit of certain people), Toews, Hossa and Sharp led all forwards in TOI.QoC (Dmen), CF.QoC (possession) and xGF.QoC (scoring chances) in 2014. So while their deployment time skewed toward the ozone along with the rest of the team, they were the ones hopping over the boards against the other team's best every night, and the guys that the other team's best hopped over to face every night on the road. His ZSR and OZF% (depending on which site you like to go to, they're basically the same) went up, but his job didn't change. He rose with a high tide, just like everybody on that roster.


As far as the 2011 and 2012 seasons, when the team had basically zero depth and were going with a glass cannon approach of trying to win every game 6-5 by loading up their best players on one line, yeah, Toews saw his ZSR rise to about the level that Kane usually sees and has seen since. While that may have been a successful time for Toews personal score-card, the team as a whole was not a particularly dangerous or effective one, there's a reason the team dropped it ASAP when they accrued the depth necessary to let him do what he does best.


If the Blackhawks want more points from Toews (assuming his sh% doesn't rebound) above anything else, then yeah, you should put him in more offensively oriented positions. The question is CAN you? Do you have enough depth that can handle the matchup role and increased Dzone start share he would then be giving up? Lord knows he's not going to get much support from the D. This is where the lack of a Kruger type hurts, if we had somebody to go full human shield in the Dzone and flip the ice, then you could afford Toews more Ozone starts.

Is the goal to win games, or to juice Toews offensive numbers? You build a deep enough team, you can probably manage both (and then some), but until then, he's stuck carrying the load with tougher minutes against tougher competition, while getting older and carrying a lot of tough miles.



One last thing, and please take this as the incredibly minor nit-pick it is, but Offensive Zone Faceoff % (naturalstattrick) and ZSR (corsica.hockey) are the proper names of stats, with their own operational definitions. But saying 'Toews started 65% of his shifts in the ozone' is factually inaccurate, because both stats leave out Neutral Zone Starts. So in 2011-2012, 65% of his draws did not take place in the offensive zone. Of his 792 FOs, 391 (49%) took place in the Ozone.

 

[RememberTheRoar]

As far as your numbers, context would be good relative to the team around him.

For example, in 2014, literally the only line under 50% OZS was the 4th line. Kruger, Nordstrom, Smith and Bollig had under 20%.

FOURTEEN forwards had OZ Start percentages over 60% according to naturalstattrick, with Kane peaking among regulars at 69.61%. That is insane. Toews had only the 7th highest OZ S% on the team among regular forwards. For the 7th highest OZS% forward on the team to be over 60 is crazy.

The simple fact is that team was in the Ozone ALL THE TIME. Toews may have had under 300 Dzone starts, he still had the 5th most among forwards (and 2nd for centers) after the 4th line and Sharp (who played more games than both Hossa and Toews that season). Basically, you had the 4th line taking the most Dzone starts, and then the Toews line up next for Dzone workload. Just like every other season since 2013.

So yeah, if you have that team, then Toews is going to get a lot of ozone starts to go with his lots of neutral zone starts, and his lots of dzone starts.

Plus (for the benefit of certain people), Toews, Hossa and Sharp led all forwards in TOI.QoC (Dmen), CF.QoC (possession) and xGF.QoC (scoring chances) in 2014. So while their deployment time skewed toward the ozone along with the rest of the team, they were the ones hopping over the boards against the other team's best every night, and the guys that the other team's best hopped over to face every night on the road. His ZSR and OZF% (depending on which site you like to go to, they're basically the same) went up, but his job didn't change. He rose with a high tide, just like everybody on that roster.


As far as the 2011 and 2012 seasons, when the team had basically zero depth and were going with a glass cannon approach of trying to win every game 6-5 by loading up their best players on one line, yeah, Toews saw his ZSR rise to about the level that Kane usually sees and has seen since. While that may have been a successful time for Toews personal score-card, the team as a whole was not a particularly dangerous or effective one, there's a reason the team dropped it ASAP when they accrued the depth necessary to let him do what he does best.


If the Blackhawks want more points from Toews (assuming his sh% doesn't rebound) above anything else, then yeah, you should put him in more offensively oriented positions. The question is CAN you? Do you have enough depth that can handle the matchup role and increased Dzone start share he would then be giving up? Lord knows he's not going to get much support from the D. This is where the lack of a Kruger type hurts, if we had somebody to go full human shield in the Dzone and flip the ice, then you could afford Toews more Ozone starts.

Is the goal to win games, or to juice Toews offensive numbers? You build a deep enough team, you can probably manage both (and then some), but until then, he's stuck carrying the load with tougher minutes against tougher competition, while getting older and carrying a lot of tough miles.



One last thing, and please take this as the incredibly minor nit-pick it is, but Offensive Zone Faceoff % (naturalstattrick) and ZSR (corsica.hockey) are the proper names of stats, with their own operational definitions. But saying 'Toews started 65% of his shifts in the ozone' is factually inaccurate, because both stats leave out Neutral Zone Starts. So in 2011-2012, 65% of his draws did not take place in the offensive zone. Of his 792 FOs, 391 (49%) took place in the Ozone.

Thank you for looking at all this and giving some actual feedback

 

[JaegerDice]

Thank you for looking at all this and giving some actual feedback

No problem. Thanks for diving into the numbers to find an interesting trend.

 

[BenchBrawl]

Lots of ingrates in the thread.The guy captained your franchise to a modern dynasty, got paid, fell off a cliff which is obviously no fault of his own, and then you have a bunch of people ripping him.

He came to town and doubled your number of championships after almost 100 years of existence.Let that sink in for a second.In 25 years, his current play won't matter.

Your team was due to collapse, almost every dynasties did except maybe Montreal from the late 50s to the late 70s where they always stayed competitive and had three dynasties.But that was another era.

 

[RememberTheRoar]

Lots of ingrates in the thread.The guy captained your franchise to a modern dynasty, got paid, fell off a cliff which is obviously no fault of his own, and then you have a bunch of people ripping him.

He came to town and doubled your number of championships after almost 100 years of existence.Let that sink in for a second.In 25 years, his current play won't matter.

Your team was due to collapse, almost every dynasties did except maybe Montreal from the late 50s to the late 70s where they always stayed competitive and had three dynasties.But that was another era.

No Hawks fan is ungrateful for what he did, thanks for stopping by though.

 

[RememberTheRoar]

No problem. Thanks for diving into the numbers to find an interesting trend.

Do you think it simply comes down to his line mates? Like he needs someone on par with what he had in Hossa/Saad on both wings?

 

[Rolo]

I love Toews, but the eye test simply shows he's not the player he once was.. He's still valuable, but overpaid. Obviously adding elite players beside him would boost his production, but we can't add too much talent outside of ELCs, due to the contracts of Kane, Toews, Seabrook.

I'd try to build a defensively reliable shutdown 4th line if I was Stan, it would help Toews and the entire team.

Would you ever trust Kampf, Jurco and Hayden out against Marchand, Bergeron and Pastrnak?

 

[RememberTheRoar]

I love Toews, but the eye test simply shows he's not the player he once was.. He's still valuable, but overpaid. Obviously adding elite players beside him would boost his production, but we can't add too much talent outside of ELCs, due to the contracts of Kane, Toews, Seabrook.

I'd try to build a defensively reliable shutdown 4th line if I was Stan, it would help Toews and the entire team.

Would you ever trust Kampf, Jurco and Hayden out against Marchand, Bergeron and Pastrnak?

I think that’s more important than adding another top-6 forward.

You already have 5.5 top-6 guys, Hinostroza being the half.

Upgrading that matchup line is more important than upgrading Hino.

 

[JaegerDice]

Do you think it simply comes down to his line mates? Like he needs someone on par with what he had in Hossa/Saad on both wings?

Every player benefits from better linemates. That's a universal truth. It just goes back to what you want from Toews and that line as far as role.

If your foremost concern is increasing offense, then you'll want to deploy him and his line differently and look for different skillsets in his wingers than you would if you are most concerned with him matching up against top competition, keeping them off the board and winning the goal differential battle. If it's the latter, I'd look at Rick Nash in free-agency, depending obviously on what price he would demand.

In a perfect world, you find a way to get Mark Stone out of Ottawa, but that's probably not going to happen. But I'd point to Stone as the prototype for a perfect winger for Toews given his current deployment.

Short of that though, I don't think linemates can or will have as much of an impact on that line's performance as Toews performance does. He needs to drive the bus and improve his play. Whether you believe he can or not is another matter. I think he can, I just think in addition to getting leaner and faster he needs to adapt his game to an NHL that's skewing away from grinding down low and more towards creating chances off the rush. His best skills aren't as in vogue in the NHL right now as they were in 2015, he needs to recalibrate. Again, whether you think he can or not, is another matter.

 

[hawksfan50]

And now Eklund chimes in with a Toews for Weber trade rumour...course he denies that they are being traded for each other or that they are even being traded but only that discussions have taken place (per his sources)..of course the NMC with Toes prevents any trade unless he waives it ..but ...maybe he wants out of the Q circus?Or he sees the Keuth -Seabrook decline over the cliff as the last state in our decline to the both pm? But if so ..who in their right mind would want to go to MTL in their conditions a bottom feeder?On the other hand Toews us perfectly bi-lingual and French marketing $$$in MTL can fatten his already big wallet. .so maybe where there is smoke there is fire.

But doing this makes no sense. .addibgcanirgerbold tired vet D like Weber (even at a caocsavibg) while depleting outcalready suspect Centre position?We would need to be in re-build mode for a few seasons with high draft picks a better return than a washed up Weber and another RD to boot...

The only possible way is for them to include the #3 pick and a #1 next year and we throw back the #27 ....then we flip Weber somewhere else for cap spacecraft to sign Tavares...Dies Weber have any no trade or NMC issues..if so why would he consent to a deal if only to see us flip him to some other team unless it is a contender?

 

[LordKOTL]

Every player benefits from better linemates. That's a universal truth. It just goes back to what you want from Toews and that line as far as role.

If your foremost concern is increasing offense, then you'll want to deploy him and his line differently and look for different skillsets in his wingers than you would if you are most concerned with him matching up against top competition, keeping them off the board and winning the goal differential battle. If it's the latter, I'd look at Rick Nash in free-agency, depending obviously on what price he would demand.

In a perfect world, you find a way to get Mark Stone out of Ottawa, but that's probably not going to happen. But I'd point to Stone as the prototype for a perfect winger for Toews given his current deployment.

Short of that though, I don't think linemates can or will have as much of an impact on that line's performance as Toews performance does. He needs to drive the bus and improve his play. Whether you believe he can or not is another matter. I think he can, I just think in addition to getting leaner and faster he needs to adapt his game to an NHL that's skewing away from grinding down low and more towards creating chances off the rush. His best skills aren't as in vogue in the NHL right now as they were in 2015, he needs to recalibrate. Again, whether you think he can or not, is another matter.

Agreed. Linemates/pairs always affect each other to a degree, but it starts and ends with the player in question. Even if Toews is on a line centering pointless waste like Koci and Pisani, his game still has to be tight, even if his numbers tumble because he's got rubbish to work with--there will be differences in stats and in eye-test between being down with bad linemates and being as good as you realistically can be with bad linemates.

 

[Hawkaholic]

And now Eklund chimes in with a Toews for Weber trade rumour...course he denies that they are being traded for each other or that they are even being traded but only that discussions have taken place (per his sources)..of course the NMC with Toes prevents any trade unless he waives it ..but ...maybe he wants out of the Q circus?Or he sees the Keuth -Seabrook decline over the cliff as the last state in our decline to the both pm? But if so ..who in their right mind would want to go to MTL in their conditions a bottom feeder?On the other hand Toews us perfectly bi-lingual and French marketing $$$in MTL can fatten his already big wallet. .so maybe where there is smoke there is fire.

But doing this makes no sense. .addibgcanirgerbold tired vet D like Weber (even at a caocsavibg) while depleting outcalready suspect Centre position?We would need to be in re-build mode for a few seasons with high draft picks a better return than a washed up Weber and another RD to boot...

The only possible way is for them to include the #3 pick and a #1 next year and we throw back the #27 ....then we flip Weber somewhere else for cap spacecraft to sign Tavares...Dies Weber have any no trade or NMC issues..if so why would he consent to a deal if only to see us flip him to some other team unless it is a contender?

Perfect, trade for Weber and force him to retire early.

 

[migi]

Attending convention.. no surprise.

 

[hawksfan50]

Wow! His Royal Highness finally decided to attend the Convention. ..somebody must have pressured his agent that it would not look good of the Captain and Hawks "star" chose not to interrupt his summer vacation while the other $10.5 announced his attendance as soon as the Hawks announced the Convention start date.

Anyway His Majesty will attend..all hail the Captain!

 

[ChiHawk21]

Wow! His Royal Highness finally decided to attend the Convention. ..somebody must have pressured his agent that it would not look good of the Captain and Hawks "star" chose not to interrupt his summer vacation while the other $10.5 announced his attendance as soon as the Hawks announced the Convention start date.

Anyway His Majesty will attend..all hail the Captain!

no winning with u people

 

[Blue Liner]

Wow! His Royal Highness finally decided to attend the Convention. ..somebody must have pressured his agent that it would not look good of the Captain and Hawks "star" chose not to interrupt his summer vacation while the other $10.5 announced his attendance as soon as the Hawks announced the Convention start date.

Anyway His Majesty will attend..all hail the Captain!

Yeah, I'm sure Pat Brisson was pressured into anything.

 

[AmericanDream]

on a side note- I heard Toews only uses 1-ply instead of 2-ply - coincidentally he switched his wiping habits 3 years ago....hmmmm...

 

[DisgruntledHawkFan]

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

 

[No Fun Shogun]

Especially considering that most posters here probably don't care about the conventions, it is a tad surprising that going or not going would elicit any reaction other than, "Huh, neat," or "huh, wonder why?"

 

[TheSting]

And now Eklund chimes in with a Toews for Weber trade rumour...course he denies that they are being traded for each other or that they are even being traded but only that discussions have taken place (per his sources)..of course the NMC with Toes prevents any trade unless he waives it ..but ...maybe he wants out of the Q circus?Or he sees the Keuth -Seabrook decline over the cliff as the last state in our decline to the both pm? But if so ..who in their right mind would want to go to MTL in their conditions a bottom feeder?On the other hand Toews us perfectly bi-lingual and French marketing $$$in MTL can fatten his already big wallet. .so maybe where there is smoke there is fire.

But doing this makes no sense. .addibgcanirgerbold tired vet D like Weber (even at a caocsavibg) while depleting outcalready suspect Centre position?We would need to be in re-build mode for a few seasons with high draft picks a better return than a washed up Weber and another RD to boot...

The only possible way is for them to include the #3 pick and a #1 next year and we throw back the #27 ....then we flip Weber somewhere else for cap spacecraft to sign Tavares...Dies Weber have any no trade or NMC issues..if so why would he consent to a deal if only to see us flip him to some other team unless it is a contender?

Athletes have egos...and like the real world no one wants to stick around at a place of employment where they are no longer wanted. Weber also plays for a Canada team as well??? Toes obviously loves it up North as he spends all his offseason in Canada so it's a win win for him so he can be closer to his family and hot girlfriend.

 

[Blackhawks]

Bow to the almighty king, now I must attend as well!!!

 

[Blackhawks]

Athletes have egos...and like the real world no one wants to stick around at a place of employment where they are no longer wanted. Weber also plays for a Canada team as well??? Toes obviously loves it up North as he spends all his offseason in Canada so it's a win win for him so he can be closer to his family and hot girlfriend.

What a glorious day that would be

 

[Rick C137]

Lmao. People hate on Toews because there was no word of him attending. Now he sends his RSVP and people hate because....?

The kicker? I bet none of you talking shit about this actually attend the convention. Just another excuse for the complainers to complain...

He doesn’t play Chicago men’s Leauge in the summer and he’s late to RSVP to the convention....he clearly doesn’t care!!!!!

 

[BobbyJet]

Lmao. People hate on Toews because there was no word of him attending. Now he sends his RSVP and people hate because....?

The kicker? I bet none of you talking **** about this actually attend the convention. Just another excuse for the complainers to complain...

He doesn’t play Chicago men’s Leauge in the summer and he’s late to RSVP to the convention....he clearly doesn’t care!!!!!

This is what happens when your (franchise) player who is now set for life financially suddenly plays like he's 37 years-old despite being in the prime of his life. Frustrating? Damn right it is!