AjaxTelamon
Registered User
- Jul 8, 2011
- 6,072
- 1,828
Sutter's low fenwick/corsi/etc has a pretty obvious explanation (career, I'm talking...his possession numbers were trash with Cooke and Kennedy as well as just about everyone on Carolina)--weak players get knocked off the puck easily, don't win 50/50 pucks and aren't very good on the boards.
This is why Eric Staal can come to camp with a potbelly, sleepwalk through a season and still have decent possession numbers. If you're big and strong, reasonably coordinated and can cover good ground, your possession numbers will be positive, even if you're out of shape and don't give a crap. A smaller guy like Johnny Oduya just isn't going to be capable of winning any ice against him.
I agree about these deficiencies in both zones, but this seems compounded by his defensive game, which is really about keeping the puck to the outside, and yielding low probability shots. He rarely challenges players on the walls, either by design or because it's not his strength. His opposing shooting percentage over his entire career moves between 5.4-7.1%, while the league as a whole has moved between 8.9-9.4%. That's a pretty big difference. You could consider this a product of his low QoC, but it hasn't always been low, and he also tends to give up a much lower OppSh% on the PK as well.
So his style of defensive play gives up shots, but those shots don't tend to go in. And his durability has largely been a product of this style of play. Or he may just be afraid to get in the way of a shot, who knows.
In any case, no, he won't ever drive possession like J.Staal. Nor will he ever get paid like J.Staal either.